Claire Louise van Kampen, Lady Rylance (born 3 November 1953) is an English director, composer and playwright. She composed the music for

Mark Rylance Sir David Mark Rylance Waters (born 18 January 1960) is a British actor, playwright and theatre director. He is known for his roles on stage and screen having received numerous awards including an Academy Award, three BAFTA Awards, two Laurence ...

's 1989 performance as

Hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...

and shared the 2007 Sam Wanamaker Award with him. Her composing credits include music for productions of the plays '' Days and Nights'' and '' Boeing-Boeing''. In 2015, she was historical music advisor and arranger of Tudor music on the BBC TV series ''

Wolf Hall ''Wolf Hall'' is a 2009 historical novel by English author Hilary Mantel, published by Fourth Estate, named after the Seymour family's seat of Wolfhall, or Wulfhall, in Wiltshire. Set in the period from 1500 to 1535, ''Wolf Hall'' is a symp ...

''.

Early life

Van Kampen was born in Marylebone, London, England. She originally trained as a pianist at the

Royal College of Music The Royal College of Music is a conservatoire established by royal charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, UK. It offers training from the undergraduate to the doctoral level in all aspects of Western Music including perform ...

for five years, becoming the recipient of a John Land scholarship. As a girl she met

David Munrow David John Munrow (12 August 194215 May 1976) was a British musician and early music historian. Early life and education Munrow was born in Birmingham where both his parents taught at the University of Birmingham. His mother, Hilda Ivy (né ...

, a recorder player and pioneer of the

early music Early music generally comprises Medieval music (500–1400) and Renaissance music (1400–1600), but can also include Baroque music (1600–1750). Originating in Europe, early music is a broad musical era for the beginning of Western classi ...

scene in England, and became interested in

Renaissance music Renaissance music is traditionally understood to cover European music of the 15th and 16th centuries, later than the Renaissance era as it is understood in other disciplines. Rather than starting from the early 14th-century '' ars nova'', the T ...

. Studying music theory with Dr

Ruth Gipps Ruth Dorothy Louisa ("Wid") Gipps (20 February 1921 – 23 February 1999) was an English composer, oboist, pianist, conductor, and educator. She composed music in a wide range of genres, including five symphonies, seven concertos, and n ...

, she also specialised in the performance of 20th century music, premiering works by today's composers.

Career

In 1986, she joined the

Royal Shakespeare Company The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs over 1,000 staff and produces around 20 productions a year. The RSC plays regularly in London, St ...

, and the

Royal National Theatre The Royal National Theatre in London, commonly known as the National Theatre (NT), is one of the United Kingdom's three most prominent publicly funded performing arts venues, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal Opera House. I ...

, the first female musical director with both companies. In 1990, she co-founded the theatre company Phoebus Cart with her husband Mark Rylance. Since the opening of the Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in 1997, van Kampen has been the Director of Theatre Music, creating both period and contemporary music for 30 of the Globe's productions – including the 'jazz' ''

Macbeth ''Macbeth'' (, full title ''The Tragedie of Macbeth'') is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. It is thought to have been first performed in 1606. It dramatises the damaging physical and psychological effects of political ambition on those w ...

'' in 2001, and ''

The Golden Ass The ''Metamorphoses'' of Apuleius, which Augustine of Hippo referred to as ''The Golden Ass'' (''Asinus aureus''), is the only ancient Roman novel in Latin to survive in its entirety. The protagonist of the novel is Lucius. At the end of the no ...

'' in 2002, which contained a 30-minute opera ''Cupid and Psyche''. In spring 2007, she received the Vero Nihil Verius award for Distinguished Achievement in the Arts, conferred upon her by

Concordia University Concordia University (French: ''Université Concordia'') is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1974 following the merger of Loyola College and Sir George Williams University, Concordia is one of the t ...

in Oregon, United States. Together with Mark Rylance and Jenny Tiramani, she received the 2007

Sam Wanamaker Samuel Wanamaker, (born Wattenmacker; June 14, 1919 – December 18, 1993) was an American actor and director who moved to the United Kingdom after becoming fearful of being blacklisted in Hollywood due to his communist views. He is credited a ...

Award for the founding work during the opening ten years at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. ''Farinelli and the King'' is van Kampen's historical play about the relationship between

Farinelli Farinelli (; 24 January 1705 – 16 September 1782) was the stage name of Carlo Maria Michelangelo Nicola Broschi (), a celebrated Italian castrato singer of the 18th century and one of the greatest singers in the history of opera. Farinell ...

, the

castrato A castrato (Italian, plural: ''castrati'') is a type of classical male singing voice equivalent to that of a soprano, mezzo-soprano, or contralto. The voice is produced by castration of the singer before puberty, or it occurs in one who, due t ...

, and the Spanish King Philippe V, first performed at Sam Wanamaker Playhouse in February and March 2015, and at the

Duke of York's Theatre The Duke of York's Theatre is a West End theatre in St Martin's Lane, in the City of Westminster, London. It was built for Frank Wyatt and his wife, Violet Melnotte, who retained ownership of the theatre until her death in 1935. Designed by th ...

in the West End, London from September to December 2015, with Mark Rylance as Philippe V. It received six Olivier Award nominations including Best Play. In 2016 she directed Mark Rylance in

Nice Fish ''Nice Fish'' is a 2016 play by Mark Rylance, co-written with Louis Jenkins and adapted from poems by the latter. It received its world premiere production at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, MA in January 2016, and then transferred t ...

at the

St. Ann's Warehouse St. Ann's Warehouse is a performing arts institution in Brooklyn, New York City. Formerly the Church of St. Ann and the Holy Trinity on Montague Street, in 1980 the site was converted into a venue for classical music. Initially known as ''Arts a ...

, New York. The production subsequently transferred to the Harold Pinter Theatre

Personal life

Van Kampen was previously married to an architect, Chris van Kampen, with whom she had two daughters, the actress Juliet Rylance and the late filmmaker Nataasha van Kampen. She met

in 1987, and they married in

Oxfordshire Oxfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the north west of South East England. It is a mainly rural county, with its largest settlement being the city of Oxford. The county is a centre of research and development, primaril ...

on 21 December 1989. Her daughter Nataasha died of a suspected brain haemorrhage on a flight from New York in July 2012 at the age of 28.

Theatre (selected credits)

References

External links

*
Claire's Lecture in a series on The Building of the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse – Part 5: Music in the new theatre, August 2013

Claire and Mark on A.R.T. theatre in New York

Claire's composition for a Midsummer Night's Dream, here performed in Taiwan

Claire's composition for the movie Days and Nights
{{DEFAULTSORT:van Kampen, Claire Living people 1953 births Women classical composers English classical composers Women film score composers Musicians from London British theatre directors Women dramatists and playwrights Wives of knights